Week 4 Day 1 and Day 2

Ugh! I've been late both on my blogging and on my pushups. Lots of things going on... I performed my Week 3 Day 1 pushups on November 17th, it was my last work day before my long vacation started. Of course, work had to be hectic on the last day. I thought that I had been able to head everything off before the deadline but Murphy's Law prevailed as usual. Everyone that had a deadline made their deadline on my last day so I was crazy busy even after getting to work at 7:15 a.m. that morning. I didn't want to do my pushups the next day. The next day was the day before we were scheduled to leave for Philadelphia. That meant, errands galore and packing. So, on November 17 at approximately 11:30 p.m., I finally got to my pushups. 21, 25, 21, 21 and a maximum of 35. 

The next day, I was kind of stressed about packing since we were going to be in Philadelphia through November 27th. I was running the Marathon on November 21st and spending Thanksgiving in Philly as well. Packing for a 9-day trip is not fun for me because I have to think about my gear for the race, the workouts during the trip, nice clothes for Thanksgiving or a nice dinner out while we're there, the colder weather, and keeping everything at 50 lbs or less.

Our flight was at 6:30ish in the morning on November 19th. That meant we were supposed to be at the airport by at least 4:30 a.m. since we didn't know the extent of the new TSA security checks. That also meant we needed to be up at 3:30 a.m. and ready to roll by 4:00 a.m.

We finally arrived in Philadelphia around 3:00 p.m. and Martin was not well at all during the trip. He felt dizzy and he had a terrible headache. The Advil he took around 9:30 a.m. when we arrived at Chicago Midway and at 3:00 p.m. when we arrived at the Philadelphia Airport didn't seem to help at all. We arrived at our hotel and took whatever room was available. We ended up on a smoking floor and in a smoking room. My son Marco, who lives in Philadelphia, came to see us and went with me to pick up my race packet at the Convention Center. We went to the south side of town for some quality mother-and-son time after Martin declined to join us for dinner. Martin stayed behind at the hotel room and slept. I picked up some Dramamine and brought back some dinner for Martin. He seemed somewhat recovered after dinner but went back to sleep. I think the Dramamine made him drowsy. Fortunately, he was back to normal the following morning.

I brought up some breakfast for Martin and after a couple more hours of rest, we soon set out to do a little city exploration. I tried not to be on my feet so much. Race day was the following day and I had already walked a bunch the day before. Unfortunately, our hotel doesn't have room service so we still have to walk around to find a place to eat. I had thought about doing my pushups on this day but I soon forgot about it as I was prepping my stuff and reviewing my game plan for the day.

Race Day. I'll have a separate blog post about the events of the day. I didn't even think about pushups at any time during this day. I probably blocked it out of my head completely. HAHAHA!

So now it's the day after and I felt pretty good, about 99% back to normal. Martin and I walked around and explored a lot of the monuments and buildings. We got back to the hotel late in the afternoon. As I was rolling out my quads, hamstrings, calves, IT band, and feet, I feel this sudden surge of panick wash over me. I realized that I hadn't done any of my pushups!! What if I had lost all that conditioning?? Today would actually be the 5th day since I last performed any kind of pushups!! I was angry and disappointed with myself. So much for portability!! If the brain can't remember, the workout won't happen. Aaaarggh!

So I crank them out; 25, 29, 25, 25 and push out the maximum I could possibly do of 45!! My highest so far!

MY OBSERVATIONS:

• Warm up the arms. Warm up the chest. Warm up and get the heart rate up slightly. Feel the body temperature rise. This is the foundation for successfully completing all the sets especially this far into the challenge.
• Don't be afraid to work up a sweat! I work up a sweat every time. For Week 4 Day 1, I was sweating so much, I had to change into some dry clothes.
• Breathe!! Use the breath to push yourself to the limit. Exhale all the air out of the lungs on the effort. Inhale on the recovery. I feel like I mimick a mother in labor when I'm trying to get one more pushup. Pretty soon, that "one more" ends up as "five more."
• Just do it! Whoever thought of this Nike tagline is, was and always will be right. Look at the first set and just do it. Don't think about all the other sets that follow. Put the number of the first set in your head and just do it! The more you think about it, the more you're going to find ways to get intimidated.
• Fortunately, the muscles don't lose their conditioning that quickly! Yay!
• Continue to keep in mind: 
• to use the large muscle groups in the chest while performing pushups
• keep the the abdominals, glutes, and back muscles engaged
• fatigue will hit the arms first but with the support of the chest and core, fatigue can be delayed